Behind Closed Doors
by Taliya
Summary: When teenage homicide detective Kuroba Kaito fails to obtain a voluntary confession by conventional methods, enter unconventional means by way of the divine. Written for Poirot Café's Themed Writing Contest #32: Black.


Detective Conan and Magic Kaito characters, settings, and ideas do not belong to me but to Aoyama Gōshō.

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Warnings: Mild language

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Behind Closed Doors

By Taliya

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Word Count: 2283

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The blackness of the interrogation room was marred only by the single lamp that sat on the corner of the table, its beam projected away from him and onto the man sitting slack on the other side. Indigo eyes took in the trailing tendrils of long silver hair, and he briefly thought it a pity that such a magnificent mane was wasted on a man such as him.

'He should be waking up any time now, Kaito,' a voice reverberated in his head, and he nodded sharply in silent reply. The silver-haired man groaned, his head lifting up from its previous position on his chest, and his lips twisted into a closed lip smirk.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," he purred menacingly, and the man opposite him started first in surprise at being addressed, then a second time upon realizing that he was bound hand and foot to the chair. Green irises contracted in the face of the beam of light with a squint, and he knew that his features were masked in the gloom the shadows provided. "You know," he began with a whimsical tone that caused the platinum-haired man to snarl in recognition, "I never expected to ever meet up with you again. And yet here we are, face to face once more, _Gin_."

 _"Kuroba,"_ Gin hissed.

His smirk stretched into a wider grin as he reclined lazily in is own chair. "So pleased to see that that you remember me," he cooed, and from behind him he could hear phantom laughter echoing in his head, along with a rustle of feathers.

Gin glowered. "I should have killed you back then."

Kuroba Kaito, teenage homicide detective and unofficial member of Division One's Homicide Unit, tutted in reproof mixed with a hint of unnerving satisfaction. "Oh, but you _did_." That same nonexistent laughter sounded in his brain once more, filled with mirth. _Shut up, Shinichi,_ he thought, _You're distracting me._

'It takes that much concentration to needle him?' came the amused reply.

"Then why are you still here?" The long-haired man's piercing gaze burned darkly.

"You're so cruel," he lamented theatrically, sighing heavily. "You haven't missed me one bit?"

"You've been nothing but a thorn in my side, Kuroba," the bound man snapped furiously.

Kaito's grin sharpened, though Gin could not see it. "As I should be, considering I'm a detective," he replied with light condescension.

Gin glared at him, no doubt only able to pick out his faint outline in the face of the light shining at him. "Then why aren't you dead? I _know_ I've shot you multiple times."

'Not much of an imagination, this one,' remarked the voice in Kaito's head, and he silently sniggered in response.

He composed himself enough to taunt, "Ah, but I am also a magician, and magician never reveals his secrets. Still," he continued with a small, melodramatic sigh, "I _suppose_ I can let you in on it this one time. No one would believe you if you repeated what I tell you anyway. Well, I cannot die—at least, not yet."

'Damn straight you can't,' huffed the voice.

"And why not?" The skepticism was clear in Gin's voice.

"You see, I have a… guardian angel, of sorts, who watches over me constantly." Kaito's voice was easy and light, and here in the interrogation room, with the sound switched off so that the rest of the homicide unit could not hear what he said, he felt safe enough to spill this one tightly held secret. "He's always here, and always ready to intercede on my behalf if my life is threatened, as I've apparently some purpose of his to fulfill. He's the one who kept me alive, even though I had been poisoned." Kaito modulated his voice to be quiet, almost hypnotic, in his tone and cadence. "I should have died, you know," he remarked conversationally, as if he were commenting on the weather, "but he mitigated enough of the drug to de-age me instead of kill me." It was how he had spent three years of his life hiding behind the alias Sandayagou Charles, an abnormally bright primary school student chasing down this Organization that Gin had been a member of.

It had made his Kaitou KID heists all the more challenging to perform, shrunken as he had been. He had fortunately met up with Miyano Shiho, a defected member of the same Organization who had been known as Sherry. It was through her aid, along with his guardian angel's that had allowed him to eventually regain his adult form. During the intervening time Shiho—who had renamed herself Haibara Ai—had worked on an antidote to the poison that affected them both, as she had taken the drug she had created upon learning of her sister's death at the hands of the Organization. Kaito would sometimes be able to regain his adult form if either Ai came up with a trial antidote, or if his body was temporarily purified of the poison. Both processes were painful in the extreme, and Kaito only transformed whenever there was a dire need—namely, for a heist to keep the Syndicate's eyes on him as he searched for Pandora, or if his identity was at stake.

"You're just a brat who's been extremely lucky so far," Gin retorted, and Kaito could see the tension in the man's frame, could see how desperately he yearned for the freedom of his hands so that he could strangle the breath out of the detective.

Kaito snorted, unimpressed. "I beg to differ. Unlike you, I've been blessed—or cursed, depending on how you see it—by the gods. Well, one in particular."

An eyebrow rose in unwilling curiosity. "Who?"

The gleeful grin on his lips contained hint of maliciousness as he exclaimed, "Why, my own personal shinigami, of course! Though technically he is not really a god of death—he's actually a rather benign deity who's unfortunately been misrepresented as the God of War. You, unfortunately, with all your willing slaughter of Japanese people, seemed to have caught his particular attention." He shook his head in mock disappointment.

"I didn't take you to be a fool, Kuroba," Gin replied after taking a long moment to process Kaito's admittedly fantastical claim.

"And I am not—well, most of the time," he amended with a rueful shrug. "My celestial guardian is none other than Hachiman-sama, though I usually call him Shinichi just to irk him." Kaito pointedly ignored the grumbled, 'Insolent brat,' that ricocheted inside his skull. Instead, he stood and leered at his captive audience as he leaned over the table and whispered eagerly, "Would you like to meet him?"

Without waiting for Gin's response, Kaito thought, _If you like, Shinichi._

'You're such a brat,' came Hachiman's—Shinichi's—retort before the world blurred and resettled itself.

Kaito's body stiffened momentarily at the switch in "ownership", Kaito's consciousness sliding to the "passenger seat" as Shinichi settled himself at the "wheel". Shinichi held himself differently from Kaito—where the teenager maintained an air of boundless energy mixed with his natural showman's proclivities, Shinichi's body language was more restrained and formal. Besides the behavioral differences, there were two major physical changes. First were the eyes. Kaito's natural eye color was a vibrant indigo. Shinichi's was a blue so rich it was unnatural—aside from the fact that they glowed. The second was the addition of wings attached to his back at the shoulders. They were sleek appendages reminiscent of a raptor's and covered in glossy feathers of the darkest obsidian. Spread wide, they reached six meters across from wingtip to wingtip.

Shinichi stretched his wings as he settled more comfortably into his host's body, blinking his eerily blue eyes. He folded the feathery appendages, watching dispassionately as Gin reared as far back as he could in his seat. Gin could clearly see Shinichi, as not only had Kaito let him in on the secret, but Shinichi had allowed himself to be seen as himself while in possession of Kaito's body. Normally whenever Shinichi gained an earthly form though Kaito, people around them generally did not see the celestial being, though they reported two wildly different sensations: one being a sense of unconditional safety and security, and the other being a sense of overwhelming terror and despair. It was interesting, hearing the black and white sensations Shinichi's presence inspired, depending on whose presence they were in. Those who were native Japanese with no malicious intentions felt safe, while those who were nationals or not but had endangered Japanese citizens shied away in fear. Either way, Shinichi's presence was oppressively present whenever he gained a temporary mortal form.

"So," Shinichi stated, eyes boring mercilessly into Gin's as he watched the man jerk restlessly against his bonds, "Would you like to tell me what you have done?" His tone was quiet yet conversational, but beneath the gentle delivery was an edge harder and sharper than the tempered steel of a sword.

Gin snarled, a show of bravado that Shinichi easily saw through, and spat an oath in reply. Sweat dotted his brow, and Shinichi was gratified to see the effect he had on the man.

Shinichi tilted his head contemplatively. "Do you know why I don't like people like you?" he asked delicately, and there was a hint of unfathomable anger not dissimilar to a tsunami rolling in deep waters, unobtrusive from afar, but deadly up close. "While I value all life, I pay particular attention to the peoples I once unified and protected in life. That includes all of their descendants."

The silver-haired man's eyes were wide with fear. "Who are you?" he whispered in terror.

Wings shifted as Shinichi crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm referred to as Hachiman these days—and Shinichi to the little idiot you know as Kuroba Kaito." He disregarded the protesting, 'Oi!' in the back of his brain. "But once upon a time, I was simply called Homuda-wake, and later—" Here, Shinichi grinned in savage satisfaction, "—Oujin-tennou."

Apparently Gin knew some of his Japanese history, for his complexion paled, the change noticeable even in the dim lighting. "You're the fifteenth emperor…?"

"Was," Shinichi pointedly corrected with a devious grin. "I'm no longer an emperor since I _am_ dead and all…" Shinichi studiously ignored Kaito's raucous cackling in the back of his head at the rather morbid joke. He purposely increased his presence, allowing his fury to be openly known and recognized, and Gin visibly quailed under the suffocating, terrible weight of Shinichi's presence. "Will you tell me now ?" he asked, his voice hypnotic and compelling and layered with all the strength of his centuries of existence as a god.

"I've no idea how many," Gin choked out, the crushing despair from the god's presence squeezing his chest like a vice. "I never counted."

Shinichi felt his rage swell at the lack of a distinct number, though he kept his voice low and even. "Will you cooperate with the police now?" he asked as he withdrew his presence as much as he could. Gin nodded tiredly, pathetically grateful for the reprieve. Shinichi glared, and a mental order had Gin's head snapping up so that green eyes met otherworldly blue. "I'll hold you to it," he murmured with the unspoken promise of worse should Gin fail to hold true to his promise.

 _I'm done here,_ Shinichi thought, and relinquished his hold over Kaito's body. Kaito's form relaxed as Kaito's consciousness returned fully, and the teenager blinked now non-glowing indigo eyes. The wings had physically receded into his back, and just on the edge of his vision, Shinichi hovered, incorporeal, to the left of him with wings folded neatly behind him.

"So?" Kaito drawled as he plopped himself back down into his chair, "What'd you think?"

"You—" Gin panted, "You're a _freak of nature_ , Kuroba!"

Kaito frowned. "Oi oi," he protested, "I resent that!"

Gin continued his rant. "You possessed demon of a—"

"Mm, yes, I do get possessed from time to time," Kaito interrupted with blithe disregard, and his easy acceptance of the accusation left Gin stunned speechless. Kaito gazed slyly at the platinum-haired man and quietly admitted, "Occupational hazard of being a direct descendent of a god and all." He leaned over the table—getting up on his feet to do so—and whispered into Gin's ear, "It's also just not good practice to openly advertise that fact, unless, you know, you're the presiding emperor. Nice fellow, by the way, that Akihito-kun. Naruhito-kun's charming, Masako-chan's a delight, and Aiko-chan's an absolute doll."

'Laying it on rather thick, aren't you?' Shinichi remarked dryly, and Kaito merely smiled toothily at the god.

The silver-haired man blinked, unable to process the fact that Kuroba Kaito—one of his former marks, was on a first name basis with the Japanese Imperial family. Though given his most recent experience, perhaps he should not have been so surprised.

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"I don't know how he does it," Inspector Megure Juuzo muttered as Gin was led out of the interrogation room and into a holding cell for further processing. "How he gets a confession from even the most stubborn of felons, I'll never know." He walked down the halls of the police department towards his office. He had seen the change in behavior several times before, and every time it was always within the confines of the interrogation room and only when the sound was off so that observers could not hear.

 _A peculiar quirk, to be sure,_ he admitted as he sank into his protesting swivel chair. _But as long as it gets a voluntary confession, I'll take it._

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Author's Note: Erm… yeah. I'm still not quite sure what to make of this one myself. Something of a twist on my idea of Shinichi as a shinigami, I suppose. The name I chose for Kaito's shrunken phase is a mix of the names of two fictional phantom thieves: Sir Charles Lytton, also known as "The Phantom" in _The Pink Panther_ , and Carmen Sandiego from the titular game franchise that I absolutely adored in my childhood. Hachiman is a major Shinto deity who is known as the patron god of warriors and the divine protector of Japan and its peoples, and has been somewhat mislabeled as the god of war. He was supposedly Honda-wake, the legendary fifteenth emperor of Japan who consolidated imperial power and promoted cultural exchange with Korea and China. Upon his ascension to the throne in the fifth century, he was referred to as Oujin-tennou and was deified after his death as Hachiman. As you can probably tell, I've taken quite a few liberties with Hachiman's appearance. Yay for historical fact dumps. I hope you enjoyed it.

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Completed: 23.03.2017


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